Thursday, 27 February 2014

While browsing her patterns I found a little beauty called The Dreamer, which I thought was really rather nice.

While visiting Etty-Lilly in Morecambe last week I bought two balls of yarn, one of them was the James C Brett Woodlander DK in the pink shades (L8).

So I started making this pattern. I adapted it slightly as I couldn't get mine to sit right, it's not very different really, just the odd stitch change, which meant the edging rows are slightly different too.

One ball did just under 12 motifs, which obviously was not enough for anything really. As it happens my daughter Shona was in Morecambe that weekend so I asked her to pick me up two more balls. It is still not really enough so going to have to go find some more!

In the meantime I can't decided whether to join them in a random assortment, or go for a colour blending effect.

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

After the departing of my sweet little Dotty Dog I have felt a bit lost.

I actually didn't realise how much I interacted with her through the daytime when I am in the house on my own - it was a lot.

I also didn't realise that I was deliberately quiet when doing certain things, like opening a packet, as she would be there, under my feet, until I had fed her what was in the packet - regardless of what it might be, if it made a noise it was obviously edible.

I am sure I still hear her wandering around the house, looking for somewhere comfy to grab a nap.

I guess this will go on for a while...

In the meantime I have been zipping about like a blue-bummed fly, trying to keep my mind occupied, but not really actually doing anything really productive.

I've been doing quite a bit of listing stock on my new website, but that is rather autonomous and takes very little effort or thought.

I started a crochet blanket, not because I need one, or even really had the desire to have one, just because I needed something that took little thought. My hands just cannot stay still, especially on an evening when we are watching a couple of hours of TV, but my mind couldn't cope with patterns or concentrating hard.

I really need to give myself a good shake, put some music on (to drown out the silence) and get productive.

I started today by going up to Hobbycraft (Carlisle) and doing a proddy rag rug demonstration. People quite like to see older crafts resurged so loads of people stopped to chat to me? Some even took away fliers for the upcoming class, which was nice :)

I'll settle down tonight and watch The Great British Sewing Bee which I have on Sky+, in the hope that it will make me want to fire up my sewing machine. Some of those guys are mighty clever. I made a platypus once and that's as far as I've got.

Thank you for taking part in the Birthday Blog Box giveaway, if you did. There was a load of entries, some coming in via email, some via blog comments, others via Facebook. There were names popping up all over the place!

All the names were put into a random name generator and the button was pressed...... you can see it HERE.

The winner was LEZLEY W.

Well done Lezley, this box of bits & bobs collected throughout the last couple of months is yours. It will be with you very soon.

Friday, 21 February 2014

A friend picked up this pattern in the vain hope of knitting it for herself :) I figured out I would probably get it to do once it had been unpicked a couple of times, so offered to do it from the start, rather than working with frogged yarn!

It is a Wendy pattern 5313, in the Pampas yarn, which is a mega-chunky. (excuse the crinkled pattern, it had been sat on a couple of times.

My friend rather liked the look of a yarn which was just a chunky and not a mega chunky, so I figures that it would work out the same if we just doubled the thickness and ran two balls of yarn at the same time.

A set of tutorials for beginners Beadweaving. Colour, step-by-step print outs so you can learn all these stitches and clasps too!

A gorgeously clashy necklace in pale pink, red and hot pink, with a silver plated clasp.

A little bluey lilac crochet rose on a brooch pin.

A Snowflake Obsidian pendant :)

An earring book by Bead & Button. 28 pairs of earrings to make - but it's in Spanish! However, I am sure someone can work them out from the photos.

6 beautiful crystal buttons.

And I might have dropped a few more bits in on the way ....

A couple of lavender triangles for your undies drawer :)

A ceramic pin badge in the shape of a super cute cat.

And some surprise bits too.

So, what do you have to do to be in with a chance of winning the Birthday Blog Box I hear you ask. Well it's very easy actually, all you have to do is let me know.

This can be via a comment on this very blog, or a comment on the Facebook page link, or even an email.

The winner will be chosen by a random name generator, I just type all the names in and it gives me back a randomly picked one. I will accept entries up until 7.00pm on Sunday 23rd February 2014 (British time) and I will do the draw after that on Sunday (or perhaps Monday, if I should forget :) )

Anyone from anywhere can enter and the winner gets everything listed above.

Good luck, and feel free to share if you do not fancy putting your name down.